Stunning F-Type will revive Jaguar

By David Booth, Postmedia News

Originally published: September 28, 2012

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PARIS — Behold the star of the recent Paris Motor Show, the sexiest V6-powered roadster on the planet and the car that will save Jaguar.

Not that the iconic British brand should need saving — its current model lineup is plenty strong — but since Ford’s mismanagement, none of the fantastic strides the company has taken, such as aluminum chassis, new engines, etc., have captured the public’s imagination. Fine designs all — the new XJ and the French Racing Blue XK R-S especially so — but there has been nothing dramatic enough to shake the X-Type blues. What’s been needed is, well, a new E-Type.

That is precisely what Adrian Hallmark, Jaguar’s global brand director, says the company will deliver with this new F-Type.

They are pretty big shoes to fill. Jaguar, for those too young to remember the ’50s and ’60s, was the up-and-coming sports car brand after the Second World War, dominating Le Mans with its C- and D-Types and then unleashing what many still believe to be the most beautiful sports car in automotive history upon an unsuspecting crowd at the Geneva Motor Show in 1961.

The E-Type was, by all measures, an extraordinary automobile. It had the panache of a Ferrari, the performance of a Lamborghini and, while it would be an exaggeration to say it was as affordable as a Chevrolet, it was the one exotic that we ordinary folk could at least dream of affording. It was, in the words of Hallmark, the car “that forged the idea of Jaguar as a performance [vehicle] that could compete on a global level.” It was also, unfortunately, the last true two-seat Jaguar for more than 50 years, a drought the F-Type looks to end with panache.

Hallmark is also counting on exactly that panache to halo over the company’s entire lineup. It’s easy to see why the company’s global brand director is strutting with a little more confidence as this may be styling guru Ian Callum’s best effort yet. I suppose I could regale you with all manner of pithy Callum quotes (the best being that Jaguar’s founder Sir William Lyons’ designs were “inconsistent”), but even a single picture, being worth a 1,000 words, better captures its beauty. Suffice it to say, the F-Type was the star of the Paris Motor Show.

The F-Type, though, is more than just a shiny bauble to lure unsuspecting millionaires into Jaguar dealerships; all indications are that it will be the first true sporting Jaguar since that fabled E-Type.

The stats spell it out adroitly enough. Thanks to an all-aluminum chassis (and body panels as well save the trunk, which is a lightweight composite), the new F-Type weighs in at 1,597 kilograms. All its engines are supercharged, from the base 340-horsepower 3.0-litre V6 that also sees duty on the XF and XJ through the hyper-boosted 380-hp variant of the same engine to a 495-pony version of the company’s ubiquitous but ultra-sophisticated 5.0L V8. According to Ian Hoban, the Jaguar’s vehicle line director, the engines accelerate the F to 100 kilometres an hour in 5.3, 4.9 and 4.3 seconds, respectively. One aspect that may disappoint sports car fans is that the only transmission available is a ZF automatic, though Hoban does note that it houses eight speeds and that changing gears is an even more rapid affair now.

Hoban claims that the F-Type’s chassis is its most advanced feature. Compared with the RS, the sportiest of all current XKs, the F-Type’s platform is stiffer both torsionally and laterally, as much as 30% between the front strut towers, Hoban says. The suspension, like other high-performance Jaguars, is electronically adjustable, reacting in the blink of an eye to differences in the road surface. Jaguar also claims that the F’s 14.6:1 steering box is the quickest ever on a Jaguar and that drivers can firm it up even more by futzing with the driver-selectable Dynamic mode accessed through switches in the centre console.

One potentially large difference between the V6 and V8 models is that the lesser-powered six-cylinder gets an all-mechanical limited-slip rear differential, while the eight-cylinder version gets the same electronically controlled “e-diff” as the XKR. There’s also different traction control tuning to suit the different systems. Reading between the lines, it may well be that the V6S version of the F-Type is the sportier of the two models despite the loss of two pistons thanks to sportier chassis calibrations. Indeed, though we didn’t get to drive the new F-Type, they were paraded (sometimes at full throttle) before us like two internally combusting stallions at auction.

The big surprise is how deliciously powerful the V6S sounds, Jag’s new 90-degree V6 (very much a Jaguar/Land Rover V8 with two cylinders lopped off) sounding like a high-revving motorcycle that’s been mated with a Maserati V8 with an aftermarket Tubi exhaust system. It may be the most aurally pleasing V6 yet. Indeed, I’ll stick my neck out and predict that it is the V6S and not its V8-powered stable-mate that wows the critics with its sporty handling and performance, not to mention rakish good looks.

Whatever the guise, the F-Type is alluring and, while it might not have the overwhelming impact of its predecessor (even Enzo Ferrari is reputed to have labelled it the most beautiful car he had ever seen), it does mark a return to Jaguar’s roots.